2003-06-13 04:00:00 PDT New York -- David Brinkley, whose pungent news commentaries, delivered with a mixture of wry skepticism and succinct candor, set the standard for network television for generations, died at his home in Houston late Wednesday. He was 82.

Brinkley liked to say that he had "done the news longer than anyone on Earth." He summed up his own career as the subtitle of his 1995 memoir, "David Brinkley: 11 Presidents, 4 Wars, 22 Political Conventions, One Moon Landing, 3 Assassinations, 2,000 Weeks of News and Other Stuff on Television and 18 Years of Growing Up in North Carolina."

His style of writing and delivering the news -- clipped sentences spoken in measured cadences and in a sardonic voice -- was echoed by legions of young television commentators, imitated by comedians and mimics, and instantly recognized by generations of Americans.

Brinkley was among the last of a generation of reporters who got their basic training at newspapers and wire services, then made their name in the new medium of television. That generation included Walter Cronkite and John Chancellor.

Brinkley achieved a number of firsts, including writing and serving as host for one of the earliest television news magazines, "David Brinkley's Journal," in the 1960s. But he was at the height of his popularity from 1956 to 1970, when NBC decided it did not have anyone who could compete alone successfully against Cronkite of CBS and teamed Brinkley with Chet Huntley on a nightly news program it called "The Huntley-Brinkley Report."

Huntley reported from New York, and Brinkley held forth from Washington. The chemistry between the two newsmen, thanks largely to the controlled astringency of Brinkley's commentary, gave the broadcast a dominant place in the ratings, overtaking Cronkite's in two years.

Reuven Frank, the program's producer, was credited with conceiving its famous closing lines "Good Night, Chet," "Good Night, David," "And good night for NBC News" as a gesture of warmth to offset the serious demeanors of Huntley and Brinkley and the seriousness with which they treated the nightly news. In later years, Brinkley said he thought the sign-off was "silly and inappropriate."

Some of Brinkley's finest moments involved the coverage of politics by "The Huntley-Brinkley Report," particularly its live reporting from the parties' conventions, beginning in 1956.

"The Huntley-Brinkley Report" ended with Huntley's retirement in 1970, but Brinkley remained at NBC for 11 years after his departure. He was an anchor of "Nightly News" with John Chancellor from 1976 to 1979 and for a while presided over "NBC Magazine."

In September 1981, Brinkley, then 61, said he was leaving NBC after 38 years "because there's nothing at NBC that I really want to do." The network had just picked Roger Mudd and Tom Brokaw as the anchors for "Nightly News" and Brinkley felt he had no role.

With Brinkley in charge, the program's blend of political news, commentary and sometimes quarrelsome debate established it as both a ratings leader and a trendsetter on Sunday mornings.

Brinkley retired from his weekly stint as moderator of ABC's "This Week With David Brinkley" in November 1997, saying he would contribute commentary and perform other duties for the network. In the months leading up to his retirement, he observed that he had covered 22 national political conventions, which he had come to regard as "cruel and unusual punishment."

In 1998, he surprised many of his admirers in the news business when he agreed to become a spokesman for Archer Daniels Midland, the agribusiness giant. He had retired from ABC only months earlier. Archer had gotten itself into serious difficulty with the federal government in 1996, paying a $100 million fine for the price fixing of food and feed additives.

Some of the most esteemed figures in television news, including Cronkite, the retired CBS News correspondent and anchor, expressed reservations and puzzlement, since representing a corporation appeared to be in conflict with Brinkley's image of independence as a newsman.

When the commercial turned up only on the program that Brinkley had just retired from, ABC pulled the ad, but it reinstated it a few months later.

During his final election-night program, in 1996, Brinkley delivered some parting shots, calling then-President Bill Clinton a bore and telling voters they could expect more "goddamned nonsense" for the next four years.

Callers flooded the network's phone lines to complain about or praise Brinkley's remarks. But he apologized to Clinton a few days later.

David McClure Brinkley was born on July 10, 1920, in Wilmington, N.C., the son of William Graham Brinkley, a railroad man, and Mary MacDonald West Brinkley. While he was still a student at New Hanover High School in Wilmington, he worked for a weekly newspaper, owned by a relative, providing a column about high school activities.

After high school, he attended the University of North Carolina and Vanderbilt University but got degrees from neither. He joined the Army in 1940 but was discharged for medical reasons a year later.

In 1942, he got a reporting job with United Press in Atlanta and later worked for the news agency in Montgomery, Ala., Nashville and Charlotte, N.C. He then moved to Washington, where NBC, impressed by his ability to write for the ear, hired him as a news writer.

Brinkley's marriage to Ann Fischer ended in divorce. They had three children. In 1972, Brinkley married Susan Adolph.

"The only way to do news on television is not to be terrified of it," Brinkley said. "Most of the news isn't very important. In fact, very little of it is."